


For That Indelible Time

by small_town_girl



Category: Glee
Genre: Family, Illnesses, Love, M/M, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-07
Updated: 2011-08-07
Packaged: 2017-10-22 07:42:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/235730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/small_town_girl/pseuds/small_town_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of Kurt's devotion to Blaine - through one seemingly simple gesture repeated over and over again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For That Indelible Time

It was a story that everyone in the family knew well, and one no one ever minded hearing repeated at every family get-together. The teenage girls, and though they’d never admit it some of the boys, shared the story with their friends, wishing their boyfriend or girlfriend could be that romantic. To them, it was something taken right from the plot of a movie. It just didn’t happen in real life, not to them, not to someone they knew.

Kurt no longer spoke of his past, lately he had a hard time remembering the names and faces of the people he saw everyday. It was to be expected, he was approaching ninety years and the whole family knew the end would be coming soon. Kurt was one of the few original New Directions still alive and he had outlived his husband by ten years. Family gathered more often, found excuses to visit, all wanting to spend as much time with their beloved Kurt before the time came to say goodbye.

Blaine Finnegan Torres was the only child of Kurt and Mark Torres who still lived in the same city as his father. He was their oldest, adopted from a teenage girl much like Quinn had been all those years ago, and he was the first one to pass on the story to his own children.

Blaine was the one who’d taken over caring for Kurt when his father grew too frail to take care of himself. The downstairs den was turned into a bedroom since Kurt couldn’t manage walking up and down so many stairs, he’d learned about the different pills Kurt had to take, traded his truck for a car that Kurt could easily climb into, and most importantly, he’d learned how to shave Kurt’s head.

It would have been easier to hire someone to come to the house and do his father’s hair professionally but Blaine understood the importance of the act. It was something his father had always done for himself, by himself, and Blaine wanted to keep it as intimate as possible. His fathers had done so such for him and it was one small thing he could do for his dad.

His dad loved to brush hair. Blaine had memories of watching his dad sitting with one of his sisters, or later in life one of Blaine’s children, brushing their hair as they watched television together. When his dad and his papa would watch movies together, his dad always played with his papa’s hair, running his fingers through it. As a curious child, he had wanted to know why his dad shaved his head when he loved playing with hair so much.

He’d been too young to fully appreciate too much of the story his dad had shared with him. All he’d really understood that his dad shaved his head because of some guy who died over ten years ago and that he‘d been named after that guy.

*****

It was one of the easiest decisions Kurt ever made in his short life. He stood in front of the bathroom mirror, door locked because Finn had something against knocking, electric razor in hand. For the first time since Blaine had told him the news, he wasn’t crying. His eyes were red and swollen but they were dry.

His hands were shaking so badly that it took him three tries just to turn on the razor. He couldn’t do it, not alone. Every time he got the razor close to his hair, he couldn’t breathe. He’d made the decision, he wasn’t changing his mind, he just couldn’t do it himself.

“Dad?” he knew his dad was waiting for him in the hallway.

His dad was in the room next to him the second he unlocked the door. Kurt saw a glimpse of Carole and Finn in the hall when the door opened but neither made a move to join them in the bathroom.

“Son, what do you need?”

Kurt knew his dad felt helpless. He felt helpless. He didn’t know how to help Blaine and his dad didn’t know how to help him.

“Kurt, are you sure?” his dad must have noticed the razor in his hand.

“Yes,” he answered immediately. “Will you help me?”

“Of course.”

Kurt watched as lock after lock floated to the floor. He expected to feel something more, some kind of emotional attachment to his hair, but all the felt was relief. He was relieved that he’d finally found something he could do for Blaine. He wanted so much to be able to hold his boyfriend but Blaine was in isolation because his immune system was shot. It was so hard watching Blaine getting sick from treatment or crying in fear and not be able to run straight to him, wrap his arms around him. Blaine’s parents refused to accept that their son’s condition was serious so Kurt, Burt, Finn, and Carole visited as often as they could, and members of the Warblers and New Directions were frequent visitors. Kurt could tell his parents’ absence bothered Blaine, thought his boyfriend did his best to hide it.

“All done,” his dad said. Kurt looked up from the pile of hair and got his first look at himself in the mirror.

“I look weird.”

“You look like my son.”

 

Blaine passed away on an unseasonably cold April morning while Kurt was in French class. He was really beginning to hate that class. His dad and Carole came to get him, with his dad taking him to the hospital and Carole staying at school to tell Finn then they would tell the Glee club together. It was the first time in two months Kurt was able to touch Blaine without wearing gloves. He was cold. He wasn’t Blaine.

Kurt couldn’t bring himself to sing at the funeral. The Warblers sang a beautiful medley of Blaine’s favourite songs but no one from New Directions sang. Blaine was a Warbler and so it was the Warblers who sang. Wes had asked Kurt to join them but he refused. He did sing for Blaine, but not until everyone was long gone.

It wasn’t long after Blaine’s funeral that Kurt noticed his hair was growing passed the point where he normally shaved again. He was halfway through his routine, mindlessly shaving as he’d done so many times when the reality set in. Blaine was gone. There would be no more shaving their heads together, no more contests over who could think of the funniest bald nickname, no more kissing a stubble-filled head for good luck before another surgery or another treatment that never worked. It might seem ridiculous to people who couldn’t understand, but it had become something normal in their lives when nothing else was routine.

For the second time since Kurt had made his decision, his dad helped him shave his head.

 

*****

The first time his dad told him the story behind his shaved head, Blaine thought he was silly. Why would he shave his head for one guy when he was married to another guy? Why would his dad want to keep doing something that brought back all those memories and why did his papa not get mad?

It wasn’t something Blaine could understand until he was older, like most of the stories his dad and papa shared with him. He’d had his heart broken, broken a few hearts himself, before settling down with an amazing woman. His dad pulled him aside on their wedding night and told him to hold on to the normal things as much as possible. It might have been a little cliché to those who didn’t know the depth of his dad’s words but Blaine knew. His dad’s shaved head was more about just remembering an old love; it was about remembering a person who’d left a big impact on his dad’s life. It didn’t mean his dad loved his papa less than he’d loved Blaine.

 

Kurt died in his sleep at the age of ninety-one. His entire family gathered to say their good-byes and at his funeral, the story of Kurt’s devotion to Blaine was shared again.


End file.
